Friday, May 16, 2008

My husband and I have a regular date night on Thursdays (our nanny works late on that day), and this week was our first date night downtown. It was so much flippin' fun to have a date night WITHOUT DRIVING.

First we went to a Mexican restaurant on Spring between 5th and 6th The restaurant was pretty mediocre but it was nice to sit and watch our neighbors walk by.

Then we walked down Broadway. It's so cool to see the old theater facades. There's been talk about restoring the theaters for years, but I don't think it's going to happen any time soon.

We were going to have a drink at Broadway Bar but they have a dress code. So we kept moseying down Broadway.

Blurry pic, but I wanted to show that a new Pilates studio is opening in the neighborhood. Pilates! On Broadway!

When we hit 9th we swung around back to Spring. This is the back of the Orpheum.

We stopped at 626 Reserve for a drink. Lucky us, it turned out they were having a speed dating event for Black singles. Great wine and awesome people watching (and the people were so very pretty).

There were three older (as in their 60s) gentlemen sitting at the bar, and they immediately introduced themselves, asked us our names, how long we'd been in the neighborhood, etc. When was the last time something like that happened to you in a bar in LA? What's that? Never?

Turned out these gentlemen were old buddies from USC, and one is the chair of the sociology department at Cal State Northridge. This was wonderful on so many levels. First of all, how great to hang out with people who aren't white young hipsters? Second, they were so funny and smart and interesting--one guy had even been in the Peace Corps in the 60s. Finally, just being around people who are freakin' friendly instead of the usual LA too-cool-to-talk-to-you bullshit.

We left after two hours (after getting handshakes good-bye from the bartender and an invite to come back soon), and all of the building facades were lit up.

I'm really looking forward to checking out the rest of the neighborhood.